Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets will not be opening in the area any time soon — including the newly built store in downtown Fresno.Tesco PLC had planned to open at least 10 stores in Fresno and Clovis but is pulling back on its plans to open the small-format grocery store, a spokesman said this week.

Two off-duty Fresno police officers helped a relative rough up the owner of Simonian Farms in December 2005, a jury ruled Wednesday in Fresno County Superior Court.Jurors voted unanimously to award Dennis Simonian $7,500 in damages for battery and emotional distress related to the confrontation that happened as families were looking at Christmas trees on Simonian’s farm.

PoliceFresnan arrested in gas station, bank robberiesA man was arrested Thursday in connection with the robberies of a Clovis gas station and a Fresno bank. Keith Bowen, 38, of Fresno was arrested by Fresno police at a hotel on Shaw Avenue near Highway 99.

SACRAMENTO — Two months after he voted for new taxes, Assembly GOP leader Mike Villines is still feeling the heat from party conservatives.The latest salvo came this week from former California Republican Party chairman Shawn Steel, who said on a Modesto radio show that he and other Republicans plan to ask Villines to resign as GOP leader.

The Fresno City Council today authorized $1.3 million in repairs to two failed gas turbine engines, which generate electricity at the Fresno-Clovis sewage treatment plant.

Some of the fastest swimmers in the Central Section — if not the entire state — will meet this weekend for the Clovis West Swimming and Diving Invitational.Approximately 1,500 swimmers and 70 divers — both varsity and junior varsity competitors — are registered to compete in the state’s largest high school aquatics event.